2017 Pac Cell Trip Synopsis Posted

The synopsis of the 2017 (October 7-9) Pacific Cell Friends of the Pleistocene Field Trip in the Northern Owens Valley/Long Valley, California has been posted online. More details can be found on the 2017 Pacific Cell Field Trip Synopsis webpage here.

The basics are as follows:

Trip Leaders: Fred Phillips, Drew Levy, Paul Hancock

Locality: The Owens Valley is a deep trough between the Sierra Nevada on the west and the White/Inyo Mountains on the east. The valley is tectonically very active, with most of the dislocation being accommodated on transtensional systems of faults. The climate fluctuations of the Pleistocene left a major imprint on the area, including impressive moraines at canyon mouths and evidence of extensive pluvial lakes.

Scope: The 2017 trip will examine mountain-front faulting along both the White Mountains and Sierra Nevada and the valley-center Owens Valley fault. We will visit early Pleistocene lacustrine exposures in the Waucoba embayment, see new evidence for mid-to-late Pleistocene lakes in Long Valley, and inspect dated moraines at Bishop Creek and in Long Valley. The area is the source of the widely distributed Bishop Tuff and we will visit the source area in Long Valley and extensive exposures of the ignimbrite sheet, as well as other minor volcanic centers.